For most parents and other child care providers, child pacification devices are a necessity. For convenience, most parents and child care providers set up and store such pacification devices in the household family room or living room which typically also contain adult-size comfort furniture. The combination of such child pacification devices and adult size comfort furniture causes overcrowding and an unkept appearance in the room. It would be desirable to provide a single device which is designed to safely contain and pacify an infant and also designed to comfortably support an adult.
Wind-up swings, walkers, rockers, and jumpers are a few devices known in the prior art for pacifying infants. The reciprocating action of such devices provides gentle motion and a continuous change of scenery, both of which generally sooth and pacify an infant. However, none of the above-listed child pacification devices can serve as furniture to comfortably support an adult.
While an electrically powered rotating seat capable of supporting an adult is described in Chihaya et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,685, the rotatable seat described by Chihaya is not designed to safely contain an infant or to provide continuous rotation, or to accept infant accessories as required by a child pacification device. Further, the chair described in Chihaya must be mounted to the floor and requires extensive gearing to be built-in to the rotating members. This gearing arrangement is expensive to construct.